Justice that should be transparent

The judgment also made it clear that claims that such material can be circulated on the basis of spurious appeals to the public interest or equally spurious reference to Human Rights Law will not be accepted as excuses for publication.

The judgment was published after the court had granted an injunction to four unnamed individuals who successfully claimed that they had been unreasonably, unfairly, systematically and unlawfully traduced in a blog published by former States Senator Stuart Syvret. Founded on the provisions of the Island’s Data Protection Law, the judgment means that Mr Syvret has been ordered to remove the distressing and damaging material and to desist from publishing material of a similar character.

As well as ordering the removal of unacceptable content from an online publication and to some extent alleviating the anguish of those who have been attacked, the judgment fires an important shot across the bows of those self-defined ‘citizen journalists’ who wrongly assume that they are beyond the limits of the law. Neither mode of publication nor strength of personal belief in accusations can be permitted to allow distressing allegations to be recklessly disseminated.

However, although the outcome of this case is without doubt highly satisfactory, one aspect of the legal process was less than satisfactory. At a very late stage the Jersey Evening Post was able to question the principle of the case being heard in private.

This question would have been put before proceedings began but for the fact that the newspaper, and indeed the great majority of Islanders, were unaware that the action had been launched.

In the event, the presiding judge’s reasons for hearing the case in camera were entirely sound, but, as he acknowledged in a parallel judgment also issued yesterday, justice must be as open and transparent as possible. It is therefore clear that the opportunity to challenge court secrecy should be available before a court sits rather than when it has concluded its deliberations – even if there are those in authority who might feel that the latter is sometimes more convenient.